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on Experimental Economics |
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Issue of 2023‒05‒01
twenty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | Mekvabishvili, Rati; Mekvabishvili, Elguja; Natsvaladze, Marine; Sirbiladze, Rusudan; Mzhavanadze, Giorgi; Deisadze, Salome |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present an experimental study of prosocial behavior and individual normative standards of fairness under the novel context of a dynamic dictator game. In addition, we explore the role of informal institutions in shaping individuals’ cooperation within the domain of a public goods game under its direct exposure and in subsequent prosociality beyond its reach in the domain of the dictator game. We find that dictators’ average offers in our study are quite close to the typical results found in other dictator game experiments and they are quite stable over two periods. However, dictators become more selfish after they have had the experience of playing a public goods game with peer punishment. Interestingly, we found that dictators act significantly more selfishly relative to their own declared individual normative standard of fairness. Furthermore, our experiment reveals a large share of antisocial punishment in the public goods game and a peer-to-peer punishment mechanism to be an inefficient tool to promote cooperation, however in an environment that rules out a suitable normative consensus and collective choice. |
| Keywords: | dictator game; individual normative standard of fairness; dynamics of behavior; spillover; prosociality; public goods game; |
| JEL: | C73 C92 D02 H41 |
| Date: | 2023–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:116774&r=exp |
| By: | Dohmen, Thomas (University of Bonn and IZA); Rohde, Ingrid M.T. (Istanbul Bilgi University); Stolp, Tom (SEO Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment among male participants to investigate whether rewarding schemes that depend on work performance – in particular, tournament incentives – induce more stress than schemes that are independent of performance - fixed payment scheme. Stress is measured over the entire course of the experiment at both the hormonal and psychological level. Hormonal stress responses are captured by measuring salivary cortisol levels. Psychological stress responses are measured by self-reported feelings of stress and primary appraisals. We find that tournament incentives induce a stress response whereas a fixed payment does not induce stress. This stress response does not differ significantly across situations in which winners and losers of the tournament are publically announced and situations in which this information remains private. Biological and psychological stress measures are positively correlated, i.e. increased levels of cortisol are associated with stronger feelings of stress. Nevertheless, neither perceived psychological stress nor elevated cortisol levels in a previous tournament predict a subsequent choice between tournaments and fixed payment schemes, indicating that stress induced by incentives schemes is not a relevant criterion for sorting decisions in our experiment. Finally, we find that cortisol levels are severely elevated at the beginning of the experiment, suggesting that participants experience stress in anticipation of the experiment per se, potentially due to uncertainties associated with the unknown lab situation. We call this the novelty effect. |
| Keywords: | incentives, stress, cortisol, sorting, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | D23 D87 D91 M52 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16025&r=exp |
| By: | Thomas Dohmen; Ingrid M.T. Rohde; Tom Stolp |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment among male participants to investigate whether rewarding schemes that depend on work performance – in particular, tournament incentives – induce more stress than schemes that are independent of performance - fixed payment scheme. Stress is measured over the entire course of the experiment at both the hormonal and psychological level. Hormonal stress responses are captured by measuring salivary cortisol levels. Psychological stress responses are measured by selfreported feelings of stress and primary appraisals. We find that tournament incentives induce a stress response whereas a fixed payment does not induce stress. This stress response does not differ significantly across situations in which winners and losers of the tournament are publically announced and situations in which this information remains private. Biological and psychological stress measures are positively correlated, i.e. increased levels of cortisol are associated with stronger feelings of stress. Nevertheless, neither perceived psychological stress nor elevated cortisol levels in a previous tournament predict a subsequent choice between tournaments and fixed payment schemes, indicating that stress induced by incentives schemes is not a relevant criterion for sorting decisions in our experiment. Finally, we find that cortisol levels are severely elevated at the beginning of the experiment, suggesting that participants experience stress in anticipation of the experiment per se, potentially due to uncertainties associated with the unknown lab situation. We call this the novelty effect. |
| Keywords: | Incentives, stress, cortisol, sorting, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | D23 D87 D91 M52 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_409&r=exp |
| By: | Brañas-Garza, Pablo; Chowdhury, Subhasish M.; Espín, Antonio M.; Nieboer, Jeroen |
| Abstract: | Fetal exposure to sex hormones can have long lasting effects on human behavior. The second-to-fourth digit ratio (DR) is considered a putative marker for prenatal exposure to testosterone (vs estrogens), with higher exposure resulting in lower DR. Even though testosterone is theoretically related to competition, the role of DR in human behavior is debated; and in situations such as bilateral conflict is unknown. We investigate this through a laboratory experiment using a repeated 2-person Tullock contest played in fixed same-gender pairs. Based on a previously obtained large sample of student subjects, we selectively invited participants to the laboratory if their right-hand DR was in the top (High-DR) or bottom (Low-DR) tercile for their gender. Unbeknownst to the subjects, we performed a controlled match of the DR types (Low-Low, Low-High, High-High). This novel methodology allows us to analyze the causal effect of DR on behavior for the first time in the literature. We find that Low-DR (vs High-DR) males compete more aggressively regardless of the counterpart's type. For females’ conflict behavior, the counterpart's type matters more than the decision-maker's type: Low-DRs are non-significantly more aggressive but every-one is more aggressive against High-DRs. Limitations due to sample size are discussed. |
| Keywords: | conflict; contest; digit ratio; gender lab experiments |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D74 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:118581&r=exp |
| By: | Antinyan, Armenak (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University.); Corazzini, Luca |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the impact of interventions aimed at reducing the demand for singleuse plastic bags. In a natural field experiment conducted in a big supermarket chain in Armenia, we test how a nudge (information on the environmental impact of plastic), a competitive financial bonus scheme, and a free provision of reusable bags affect the demand for disposable bags. Relative to the baseline with no intervention, both the bonus and the nudge considerably reduce the purchase of disposable bags. The bonus scheme and the environmental nudge are equally effective when not combined with free reusable bags. However, the financial bonus scheme combined with a free reusable bag is a more potent catalyst of pro-environmental behavior than the environmental nudge combined with a similar bag. Individuals actively use the tote bags to ditch plastic in the presence of a competitive bonus. |
| Keywords: | pro-environmental behavior; nudge; financial bonus; reusable bag; single-use plastic bag; randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | C93 D12 D91 H23 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2023/7&r=exp |
| By: | Sumon Bhaumik (Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 1FL, UK; IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, Germany; Global Labor Organization, Germany); Subhasish M. Chowdhury (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK.); Ralitza Dimova (Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK; IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, Germany; Global Labor Organization, Germany); Hanna Fromell (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark.) |
| Abstract: | We investigate experimentally the effects of information about native/immigrant identity, and the ability to communicate a self-chosen personal characteristic towards the rival on conflict behavior. In a two-player individual contest with British and Immigrant subjects in the UK we find that neither information about identity nor communicating self-characteristics significantly affect the average level of conflict. Both of those, however, significantly affect players’ strategies, in the sense of the extent they involve conflict over time. Overall, the results indicate that inter-personal communication may help to mitigate high intensity conflicts when the identities are common knowledge among rivals. |
| Keywords: | Commodity taxation; Experiment; Identity; Immigrant; Communication |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D72 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2023009&r=exp |
| By: | Chulyoung Kim (Yonsei University); Sang-Hyun Kim (Yonsei University); Jinhyuk Lee (Korea University); Jaeok Park (Yonsei University) |
| Abstract: | We consider a simple auction setting where there are three bidders and one of the bidders creates positive or negative externalities on the other two bidders. We theoretically and experimentally compare two auction formats, the first-price auction (FPA) and the second-price auction (SPA), in our setting. Using a refinement of undominated Nash equilibria, we analyze equilibrium bids and outcomes in the two auction formats. Our experimental results show that overbidding relative to equilibrium bids is prevalent, especially in the SPA, and this leads to higher revenues and lower efficiency in the SPA than in the FPA, especially under negative externalities. With incomplete information, we observe similar tendencies, while we obtain no evidence for learning effects. |
| Keywords: | auctions; externalities; experiments; overbidding; efficiency.; auctions; externalities; experiments; overbidding; efficiency. |
| JEL: | C91 D44 D62 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yon:wpaper:2023rwp-214&r=exp |
| By: | Fortuna Casoria (CEREN, BSB - CEREN EA 7477, Burgundy School of Business, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France); Fabio Galeotti; Marie Claire Villeval |
| Abstract: | We combined a natural experiment (the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020) with the tools of laboratory experiments to study whether and how an unprecedented shock on social interactions (the introduction and abrogation of a nationwide lockdown) affected the evolution of individuals' social preferences, and willingness to trust others. In a longitudinal online incentivized experiment during the first lockdown in France, we elicited the same participants' preferences for prosociality, trust and trustworthiness every week for three months. Despite the exposure to long-lasting social distancing, prosocial preferences and the willingness to reciprocate the trust of others remained stable during the whole period under study. In contrast, the lockdown had an immediate negative effect on trust, which remained at lower levels til after the lifting of such measures but recovered its initial level nine months later. The decline in trust was mainly driven by individuals who experienced financial hardship, a lack of outward exposure, and higher anxiety during the lockdown. |
| Keywords: | Social preferences, Trust, Trustworthiness, Pandemic, COVID-19, Social distancing |
| Date: | 2023–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03974756&r=exp |
| By: | Dohmen, Thomas (University of Bonn and IZA); Shvartsman, Elena (WHU Vallendar) |
| Abstract: | Working time autonomy is often accompanied by output-based incentives to counterbalance the loss of monitoring that comes with granting autonomy. However, in such settings, overprovision of effort could arise if workers are uncertain whether their performance suffices to secure the output-based rewards. Performance feedback can reduce or eliminate such uncertainty. We develop an experiment to show that overprovision of costly effort is more likely to occur in work environments with working time autonomy in the absence of feedback. A key feature of our design is that it allows for a clean measurement of effort overprovision by keeping performance per unit of time fixed, which we achieve by calibrating subjects' productivity on a real effort task ex ante. This novel design can serve as a workhorse for various experiments as it allows for exogenous variation of perfor-mance certainty (i.e., by providing feedback), working time autonomy, productivity, effort costs, and the general incentive structure. We find that subjects provide significantly more costly effort beyond a level necessary to meet their performance targets in the presence of uncertainty, i.e., the absence of feedback, which suggests that feedback shields workers from overprovision of costly effort. |
| Keywords: | working time autonomy, performance uncertainty, feedback provision, incentives, effort, subjective stress |
| JEL: | C91 D90 I10 J81 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16028&r=exp |
| By: | Wladislaw Mill; Jonathan Stäbler |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how litigation and settlement behavior is affected by agents motivated by spiteful preferences under the American and the English fee-shifting rule. We conduct an experiment and find that litigation expenditures and settlement requests are higher for more spiteful participants. The relative increase in litigation expenditures due to spite is more pronounced under the American fee-shifting rule. We further find that the expected payoff for more spiteful societies is lower than for less spiteful societies. This effect is particularly pronounced for low-merit cases under the English rule compared to a constant cost under the American rule. |
| Keywords: | Spite; Litigation; Settlement; Experiment; English rule; American rule |
| JEL: | K41 C72 C91 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_401&r=exp |
| By: | Spika, Devon (Department of Economics, Lund University); Wickström Östervall, Linnea (Swedish Research Council); Gerdtham, Ulf (Department of Economics, Lund University); Wengström, Erik (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the use of self-funded commitment contracts to support individuals in achieving their goals of increased physical activity. We compare the effect of soft (non-incentivised) commitment contracts with hard (incentivised) contracts using a randomised experiment with 1629 members of a large gym in Stockholm, Sweden. We find a significant positive impact of being offered a hard contract on monthly visits to the gym and the probability of meeting one's contract goal. Hard and soft commitment contracts increase gym visits by 21% and 8%, respectively, relative to the control group. Trait self-control is negatively associated with the likelihood of accepting a contract and accepting to add stakes. The effect of soft and hard commitment contracts does not, however, differ by trait self-control. Importantly, we find that the effects of both hard and soft contracts were greatest among participants who reported exercising the least at baseline. Our experiment explores the use of a completely self-funded and highly scalable intervention. Our experimental design allows us to shed light on the importance of hard penalties in designing commitment contracts. |
| Keywords: | Incentives; Commitment contract; Self-control; Gym attendance |
| JEL: | C93 D03 I12 |
| Date: | 2023–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2023_004&r=exp |
| By: | Cappelen, Alexander W. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Meissner, Stefan (Factworks GmbH); Tungodden, Bertil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | Consumers can sometimes be exploited because they make mistakes in their valuation of products. We present the results from a large-scale experimental study that examines whether third-party spectators from the general population in the United States cancel a deal where a buyer has made a mistake in the valuation of a product and agreed to pay more for the product than the seller knows it is worth. We find that the majority of the spectators cancel such deals even when the seller’s involvement is limited to accepting a proposal made by the buyer. A substantial share of these spectators are also willing to fine the seller. However, a large minority of the spectators are willing to uphold the deal even when the seller has proposed the deal and obfuscated the information provided to the buyer. Our results shed new light on when people view market transactions as acceptable and their attitudes to government regulation of businesses. |
| Keywords: | Consumers; irrational behavior |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2023–04–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2023_006&r=exp |
| By: | Franca Glenzer; Pierre-Carl Michaud; Stefan Staubli |
| Abstract: | Many near-retirees forgo a higher stream of public pension income by claiming early. We provide both quasi-experimental and survey-experimental evidence that the timing of public pension claiming is relatively inelastic to changes in financial incentives in Canada. Using the survey experiment, we evaluate the effect of two different educational interventions and different ways of framing the incentive to delay claiming. While all three types of interventions induce delays, these interventions have heterogeneous financial consequences for participants who react. De nombreux individus approchant de la retraite renoncent à un un flux plus élevé de revenu de pensions publiques en demandant ces dernières de manière anticipée. Nos analyses de type quasi-expérimentale et de type enquête-expérimentale montrent que, au Canada, le moment auquel les individus demandent leur pension du RPC / RRQ est relativement inélastique aux changements dans les incitations financières. Dans la portion utilisant une expérience par enquête, nous évaluons l'effet de deux interventions éducationnelles et de manières variables de présenter l’information concernant l’incitation au report de la demande de pension. Bien que les trois types d'interventions induisent des reports, elles ont des conséquences financières hétérogènes parmi les participants qui y réagissent. |
| Keywords: | Pension Claiming, Annuities, Retirement, Financial Education, Framing, Demande de pension, rentes, retraite, éducation financière, encadrement |
| JEL: | D91 H55 J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2023–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2023s-05&r=exp |
| By: | Sagit Bar-Gill; Erik Brynjolfsson; Nir Hak |
| Abstract: | As more and more activities in the economy become digitized, analytics and data-driven decision-making (DDD) are becoming increasingly important. The adoption of analytics and DDD has been slower in small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) compared to large firms, and reliable causal estimates of the impacts of analytics tools for small businesses have been lacking. We derive experiment-based estimates of the effect of an analytics tool on SME outcomes, analyzing the randomized introduction of eBay’s Seller Hub (SH), a data-rich seller dashboard. We find that SH adoption is associated with increased DDD, and that access to SH increases e-retailers’ revenues by 3.6% on average, as more items are transacted and service quality increases, without increases in average prices. Our results suggest that analytics and DDD help SMEs establish a competitive advantage. Managerial practices play an important role in reaping the benefits from the analytics dashboard, as over a third of the SH impact is driven by active performance monitoring. This suggests that digital platforms could increase revenues by supporting the adoption of analytics tools by SMEs. Furthermore, policies supporting small businesses' transition to the data era could address gaps in analytics and data-driven decision-making (DDD) by providing access to tools such as SH, as well as offering appropriate managerial training. |
| JEL: | L1 L86 M15 M3 O3 O30 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31089&r=exp |
| By: | Adrien Coiffard (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier); Raphaële Préget (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier); Mabel Tidball (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | Reverse auctions are used in various fields by public or corporate buyers to purchase goods and services from multiple sellers at the best price. Unlike in selling auctions, in reverse auctions a budget constraint rather than a target quantity is often announced by the auctioneer. However, in auction theory no optimal bidding strategy has yet been found in the case when a budget constraint is announced. Here we compare the two auction formats in an online experiment with 329 participants. We use the strategy method to obtain participants' bidding strategies from which we run exhaustive simulations of auction outcomes. This innovative methodology allows to overcome the issue of randomness of the auction outcome related to bidders' values. When each bidder has a single unit to sell, from the buyer's perspective, we find that, on average, the budget-constrained auction format outperforms the target-constrained auction format. |
| Keywords: | Reverse auctions, Online experiments, Strategy Method, Budget constraint, Target constraint. |
| Date: | 2023–04–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04055743&r=exp |
| By: | Jo, Ara; Carattini, Stefano |
| Abstract: | Although the effect of trust on local cooperation is well-documented, little is known about how trust influences global cooperation. Building on a large body of theoretical and experimental literature, we hypothesize that trust shared in a society may positively affect global cooperative behavior. We provide empirical evidence in the context of climate change that an increase in trust is associated with a larger reduction in CO2 emissions across countries, controlling for country fixed effects and a number of time-varying factors. As a falsification test, we estimate the relationship on an earlier period when there was no concern of man-made climate change (before the 1980s) and find no impact of trust on CO2 emissions during that period. |
| Keywords: | climate change; cooperation; trust; P2SKP1_16502 |
| JEL: | Q54 N50 Z10 |
| Date: | 2021–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:112163&r=exp |
| By: | Ilke Aydogan; Loïc Berger; Vincent Théroude |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the drivers of individual preferences under uncertainty. We propose a characterization of the situations of model uncertainty such as the ones introduced by Ellsberg (1961) by building on the more ambiguous relations of Jewitt and Mukerji (2017) and Izhakian (2020) and on two new more complex relations. Reconsidering existing data sets from the recent literature and combining them with new experimental evidence, we show that uncertainty preferences can be driven by considerations regarding both the degree of complexity and ambiguity that a situation entails. |
| Keywords: | Ambiguity, model uncertainty, complexity, Ellsberg paradox. |
| JEL: | D81 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2023-10&r=exp |
| By: | Tianxiao Qi (Beijing Normal University); Bin Xu (Zhejiang Gongshang University); Jinshan Wu (Beijing Normal University); Nicolaas J. Vriend (Queen Mary University of London) |
| Abstract: | Brenner and Vriend (2006) argued (experimentally and theoretically) that one should not expect proposers in ultimatum games to learn to converge to the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium offer, as finding the optimal offer is a hard learning problem for (boundedly-rational) proposers. In this paper we show that providing the proposers with given (fixed) acceptance probabilities (essentially eliminating the learning task) leads to somewhat lower offers, but still substantially above the monetary payoff-maximizing offer. By using a Risk Attitude test and a Probability Matching test, we show experimentally that the proposers’ attitude with respect to risk, as well as their ability to interpret and deal with probabilities may matter when it comes to making UG offers. Thus, we argue that the lack of convergence to the minimum offers in ultimatum games may be related to the inherent stochasticity of typical UG experiments, highlighting a possible cause of such deviations that seems a complementary explanation to existing ones. |
| Keywords: | Ultimatum game, Stochasticity, Risk Attitude, Probability Matching |
| JEL: | C72 C73 |
| Date: | 2021–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:926&r=exp |
| By: | Peña, Jorge; Heifetz, Aviad; Nöldeke, Georg |
| Abstract: | Cooperation usually becomes harder to sustain as groups become larger because in-centives to shirk increase with the number of potential contributors to a collective action. But is this always the case? Here we study a binary-action cooperative dilemma where a public good is provided only when at most a fixed number of players shirk from a costly, cooperative task. An example is a group of prey which succeeds to drive a predator away only if few group members refrain from engaging in conspicuous mobbing. We find that at the stable polymorphic equilibrium, which exists when the cost of cooperation is low enough, the probability of cooperating increases with group size and reaches a limit of one when the group size tends to infinity. Nevertheless, increasing the group size may increase or decrease the probability that the public good is provided at such equilibrium. We also prove that the expected payoff to individuals at the stable equilibrium (i.e., their fitness) decreases with group size. For costs of cooperation that are low enough, both the probability of provision of the public good and the expected payoff converge to positive values in the limit of large group sizes. However, we also find that the basin of attraction of the stable polymorphic equilibrium is a decreasing function of group size and shrinks to zero in the limit of very large groups. Overall, we demonstrate non-trivial comparative statics with respect to group size in a simple collective action problem. |
| Date: | 2023–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:128025&r=exp |
| By: | Caicedo, Felipe Valencia (University of British Columbia); Dohmen, Thomas (University of Bonn and IZA); Pondorfer, Andreas (Technical University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | Social science research has stressed the important role of religion in sustaining cooperation among non-kin. We contribute to this literature with a large-scale empirical study documenting the relationship between religion and cooperation. We analyze newly available, experimentally validated, and globally representative data on social preferences and world religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism). We find that individuals who report believing in such religions also exhibit more prosocial preferences, as measured by their levels of positive reciprocity, altruism and trust. We further document heterogeneous patterns of negative reciprocity and punishment—two key elements for cooperation—across world religions. The association between religion and prosocial preferences is stronger in more populous societies and weaker in countries with better institutions. The interactive results between these variables point again towards the substitutability between religious and secular institutions, when it comes to sustaining cooperation. |
| Keywords: | religion, prosociality, human cooperation, population, institutions |
| JEL: | D90 P35 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16026&r=exp |
| By: | Peña, Jorge; Nöldeke, Georg |
| Abstract: | The prisoners’ dilemma, the snowdrift game, and the stag hunt are simple two-player games that are often considered as prototypical examples of cooperative dilemmas across disciplines. However, surprisingly little consensus exists about the precise mathematical meaning of the words “cooperation” and “cooperative dilemma” for these and other binary-action games, in particular when considering interactions among more than two players. Here, we propose new definitions of these terms and explore their consequences on the equilibrium structure of cooperative dilemmas in relation to social optimality. We find that a large class of multi-player prisoners’ dilemmas and snowdrift games behave as their two-player counterparts, namely, they are characterized by a unique equilibrium where cooperation is always underprovided, regardless of the number of players. Multi-player stag hunts allow for the peculiarity of excessive cooperation at equilibrium, unless cooperation is such that it induces positive individual externalities. Our framework and results unify, simplify, and extend previous work on the structure and properties of binary-action multi-player cooperative dilemmas. |
| Date: | 2023–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:128031&r=exp |